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Eleanor pressed her lips together. “I assume you didn’t come all this way to critique my painting.”

“I did not,” Isabella agreed, pouring herself a cup of tea. “I came all this way to call you a coward.”

Eleanor blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“A coward,” Isabella repeated, helping herself to another biscuit. “Running from love because it frightens you. Because you don’t think you deserve it. Because you’re so wrapped up in this house that you’ve forgotten that it’s just a thing.”

“That’s not true,” Eleanor said, stiffening.

“Please, if this was about protecting the house rather than protecting that lovely young woman, you would have fought harder to make sure that you kept what you loved. This is about you. About how terrified you are to let someone love you when you have no control over what might happen next.”

Eleanor said nothing, clenching her fists in her lap.

Isabella sighed and set down her teacup. “Imogen,” she said.

“Your sister?” asked Eleanor hesitantly.

“She lit up this house like no one I’ve ever known,” said Isabella. “Her laugh, her smile, she was the most beautiful woman.” She turned sharply to Eleanor. “She wasn’t perfect, but my mother always used to say that none of us were, so why should it matter?”

“I don’t remember her,” Eleanor said.

“You wouldn’t. You were far too young. And then she fell in love with Stephan Marren, despite every single one of us warning her not to.”

“Which didn’t exactly end well,” said Eleanor.

“And yet Imogen was happier than I’d ever seen her. Happy that she finally had what she’d seen so many others have. Someone to love. And, to give the fool his due, he adored her back, in his own selfish way. He read her stories that made her laugh, played games just to see her smile. I once found him creeping into the house at two in the morning carrying a dripping box of ice cream cake that Imogen had wanted.”

“Oh,” Eleanor said, not sure what else to say.

“Of course, we all knew he was a disaster waiting to happen, but nothing we could have said would have changed Imogen’s mind. Because when you love someone, really love them, no one else’s opinion matters, does it?”

Eleanor swallowed hard.

Isabella smiled. “And then, in that first summer that Stephan came to live here, your father met your mother.” She chuckled at the memory. “It was quite the summer, love was all around us, the air was full of the scent of roses. I’ll admit that evenyour grandfather and I…” She eyed Eleanor. “Well, perhaps that’s going too far. What I meant to say was that it was one glorious, perfect summer.”

Eleanor watched her grandmother carefully.

“It was my only solace, you know,” Isabella said, picking her cup up again. “That when your parents died at the very least they were together. It was all they would have wanted. They were so devoted to each other it bordered on the obscene.”

Eleanor’s throat tightened. “Is that supposed to be comforting?”

“Yes,” Isabella said simply. “Because what they had was real. All of them. However it all turned out, whatever their endings were, every one of them had that crashing moment of realization that another person can be the other half of you. And you…” She pointed a perfectly manicured finger at Eleanor. “You have that. And you’re throwing it away.”

Eleanor found that her eyes were stinging, that she had to blink a little too hard. She let out a shaky breath. “It’s too late.”

“Rubbish,” Isabella snapped. “You think that you’re protecting Danni. Maybe you are. But there are other solutions. What you’re really doing is protecting yourself, trying to make sure that no one and nothing can hurt you. But all you’re doing is ensuring that you die alone, clinging to a house that will never love you back.”

Silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating. Eleanor’s mind reeled, every carefully built defense cracking under the weight of her grandmother’s words. She had been so sure that she was making the right choice. So sure that leaving was necessary. But what if… what if she had been wrong?

“It was obvious from the first moment I saw you together,” Isabella said, sipping at her tea. “Once you’ve seen love, you don’t forget it, you can identify it anywhere.”

Eleanor swallowed. Her hands were trembling. “I… I love her.”

Isabella sat back, satisfied. “Well, finally. That took long enough.” She looked around herself. “Do you think that I could persuade that fine Samson to drive me home?”

Eleanor looked at her grandmother. “What do I do?”

Isabella’s eyes twinkled. “Isn’t it obvious?”